According to the state, 28,542 students have enrolled for the 2018-2019 school year, a decrease of 582 students from the previous year.

The student body began shrinking after 2010, when enrollment exceeded 31,000 students. Nearly 500 students left the system by fall 2011, followed by a minor decrease of 50 students the following year. There was a spike in the 2013-2014 school year, when the losses experienced the previous two years were regained after the system added more than 500 additional students.

MPS spokesman Tom Salter said that uptick could be attributed to the opening of Park Crossing High School that year, although there isn't a definitive explanation.

The largest exit of students occurred at the start of 2015-2016 year when enrollment fell by more than 1,000 students.

The cause of the continued decrease could be various factors.

In 2015, Pike Road formed its own school district, which now has more than 1,800 students. There's been significant turnover of the Montgomery district's leadership, with four superintendents in five years.

The district came under state intervention in 2017, followed by an AdvancED report in 2018 that highlighted board members' inability to work together, as well as significant financial woes.

There continues to be the threat of accreditation loss, with the district being given a December deadline to fix its issues. Low test scores trouble some parents, with just 34 percent of MPS seniors deemed college or career ready in the 2016-2017 school year. On the state's report card, 66 percent of the Montgomery public schools received grades of D or F.

Also, the decline in enrollment could be related to the uptick nationally in homeschooling, and a decrease in the city's population.

For MPS, the impact will undoubtedly leave an already strapped-for-cash system needing to figure out how to address the decline in funding that the most recent decline in students will cause, which will be felt in fiscal year 2020.

State funding is based on average daily membership, which tracks how many students are enrolled the first 20 days of school after Labor Day. The state enrollment number provided differs from state ADM figures used to calculate state funding allocations.

The decrease in average daily membership between the 2016-2017 year compared to the 2017-2018 year cost MPS $4.6 million in enrollment funding, based on state allocation numbers.

While impossible to know if the state will fund the district at the same rate in FY 2020, based on those figures, the school system could be projected to receive $5.3 million less in the next fiscal year.